U.S Ambassador signs grant support agreements

Tamale, Aug 22, GNA - The United States Ambassador in Ghana, Mrs Mary Carlin Yates, on Wednesday signed two grant agreements with six beneficiary groups and organisations totalling nearly 40,000 dollars to support projects in Northern Ghana.
The grants come under the U.S. Embassy's "Democracy and Human Rights Fund" (DHRF) and the "Ambassador's Special Self-Help Fund" (SSH). Mrs Yates said the DHRF is designed to support small high-impact activities in civil society throughout Africa.
She said the DHRF programme considers projects that would impact positively on the Ghanaian society, bring about free and fair elections at all levels, support democracy and good governance, as well as protect and advocate for all human rights.
Ambassador Yates said the U.S. Congress established the programme in 1991 and since its inception it has provided more than one million dollars in financial support to a wide range of grassroots projects in the country.
She noted that competition for the DHRF grants is always very intense adding, "this year we have received approximately 100 applications out of which only 11 have been selected for funding."
Ambassador Yates said the SSH programme is designed to assist Ghanaian communities with projects that they initiate and plan themselves.
She said the programme enables the U.S. Embassy to give financial support directly to groups, neighbourhoods, villages and towns that take the initiative.
The programme, she said, was introduced in the country in 1990 having been initiated in 1964 with a modest programme in Togo that quickly expanded to all countries in Africa.
The Ambassador said the U.S Embassy has from 1990 to 2002 provided nearly two million dollars to support 271 projects in the country. Mrs Yates announced that the SSH programme received more than 400 applications this year but only 20 were selected for funding, adding that the grants were allocated to four sectors, namely, education, income-generation, health/sanitation and housing.
The beneficiaries of the DHRF grant are the Northern Ghana Peace Project, which received 9,000 dollars; Collaboration for Women in Distress (COLWOD), 10,000 dollars; Community Development and Youth Advisory Centre (CODEYAC), 10,000 dollars and Upper West Rural Women's Association, 5,000 dollars.
The other beneficiaries, Getinga Community Clinic in the Upper East Region and Kaleo Community Resource Centre in the Upper West Region, received 5,000 dollars and 767 dollars respectively.